In this article, Beau is a-spoiled. In an Ari Aster movie, the best thing that can happen is losing your head. Not literally, of course, although the Midsommar auteur is notoriously fond of literally cutting his characters off at the neck. In 2019, he said that "head trauma will always have a place in my movies," and his latest, Beau Is Afraid, holds true to that promise. Early on, just after Beau Wasserman (Joaquin Phoenix) cancels a planned visit to his mother, she is decapitated by a falling chandelier. But alongside the characters who get their skulls crushed and faces smashed are ones who desperately need a respite from the buzzing of their brains--who would give anything if they could, even for a minute, just stop thinking. Toni Colette's character in Hereditary comes from family with a long history of mental illness--a mother with dissociative identity disorder, a father with psychotic depression, a brother with schizophrenia--and is plagued by the feeling that she and her family are the object of a sinister conspiracy.

For die-hards, no horror movie can be too scary. But for you, a wimp, the wrong one can leave you miserable. Never fear, scaredies, because Slate's Scaredy Scale is here to help. We've put together a highly scientific and mostly spoiler-free system for rating new horror movies, comparing them with classics along a 10-point scale. And because not everyone is scared by the same things--some viewers can't stand jump scares, while others are haunted by more psychological terrors or can't stomach arterial spurts--it breaks down each movie's scares across three criteria: suspense, spookiness, and gore.

The machines are getting smarter. They can now recognize us, carry on conversations, and perceive complex details about the world around them. This is just the beginning. As computers become more human-like, many worry that robots and algorithms will displace people. And they are right to.

Editor's note: this post was co-authored by Ben Lorica and Roger Magoulas IM offers a thoughtful take on recent developments, including a critical, and sometimes skeptical, view when necessary. True AI has been "just around the corner" for 60 years, so why should O'Reilly start covering AI in a big way now? As computing power catches up to scientific and engineering ambitions, and as our ability to learn directly from sensory signals -- i.e., big data -- increases, intelligent systems are having a real and widespread impact. Every Internet user benefits from these systems today -- they sort our email, plan our journeys, answer our questions, and protect us from fraudsters. And, with the Internet of Things, these system have already started to keep our houses and offices comfortable and well-lit, our data centers running more efficiently, our industrial processes humming, and even are driving our cars.